The Only Empty Bench
by Mosshh
Summary: Three hundred and sixty five days, twelve months, one year, the exact amount of time in which feelings that both Quinn and Rachel agreed would never be able to surface would have to be buried like ghosts in their pasts.


**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Glee or any of the characters.**

**Okay, so I know it has been a while. Life has been incredibly stressful with schools, exams, uni applications, finance applications and work but here I am! I am out the otherside with a smile on my face. This is the first thing I've written in quite a while, hence the short one-shot. However I am half way through the final chapter of When I Deserve You which will be posted A.S.A.P!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**The Only Empty Bench**

Distance was the key they had told each other through floods of tears three hundred and sixty five days previously as they sat holding one another's hand sitting on the only unoccupied bench of the train station.

The key to saying goodbye is to know what you are saying goodbye to, or at least, those had been Rachel's words of advice to Quinn as Quinn begged her not to leave her. Quinn didn't understand. They had the perfect friendship, they both had evident feelings for the other and they both wanted more. How was Quinn supposed to understand? What was there to understand? It was so simple, Quinn had argued.

Sighing was Rachel's give away trait signifying that she knew the other person was right but knew she had to stand her ground. It just wouldn't work, Rachel had tried to justify, what if we grew apart, what if our friendship was lost forever if it all fell apart, what if…Rachel had continued reeling off what ifs like a waiter reeling off the specials of the day from a menu, but Quinn was beyond listening. Rachel's voice became a distorted and blurry muffle at the back of her head, nothing she could say would make Quinn feel any different about the whole situation or more importantly, any better.

After that Quinn sat silently, defeated. She knew that as much as she protested the more ridiculous reasons would pour from Rachel's mouth about why they couldn't even have a trial period of being together. In a relationship. In a relationship that they both wanted! Quinn's brain screamed all of these things inside her head weeks after Rachel had boarded the train but to no effect.

As the train came to a standstill in front of the blonde, the brunette and the other fifty or so passengers ready to board the train Rachel began to speak again. Exactly a year today we will meet again, she said, and if the feelings are still as strong as they are now, I won't deny the beginning of a relationship. Quinn had merely nodded in response and when Rachel realised that was all she deserved from the blonde she stood up and started dragging her case to the train.

No more words were spoken until Rachel turned back to say goodbye, luggage finally stuffed away in the overhead rack above her seat. Quinn had a question because the whole situation was still absurd. Instead of wasting three hundred and sixty five days of waiting and longing can't we just give it a shot and call it quits if it falls through? She'd asked a look of plea brimming in her eyes pleading for Rachel to jump of the train accompanied by her luggage or not. She didn't care. She just wanted Rachel, in person, not a figment of her imagination for a year.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, Rachel began to explain before she was cut across with the blunt word of _bullshit_ by Quinn, followed by, and if you loved me you'd stay. Quinn didn't want to play the guilt card, but what else did she have left to offer? The love of her life, albeit she was only eighteen, was about to board a train and disappear for a year. What if she met someone new? What if her feelings faded away? What if Rachel forgot about her? Quinn's guilt trip was responded to with a saddened expression upon Rachel's face and a raised eyebrow as if to say, if that's what you really think then maybe this is for the better.

Their feelings for one another had only been apparent for two months. A twinge in the bottom of Quinn's stomach causing the butterfly effect you feel on a rollercoaster every time she looked at Rachel should have been a clear indicator to her feelings but she hadn't put the two and two together. I'm going because I love you, Rachel had said sadly, looking at her feet as she spoke before turning and walking back into the train trying to contain the compelling urge to cry. Quinn mentally slapped herself for not picking up on the signs earlier. Maybe they wouldn't be in this predicament. But maybe Rachel was right.

She didn't want to lose their friendship. She didn't want to lose Rachel. She was being selfish and she knew it. But what was she supposed to have done. Let Rachel go without a fight? The whole idea of Rachel leaving had been a joke in passing one day. Quinn had said that if Rachel left for a while they would come running back into each other's arms with no hesitations and even stronger feelings. They'd both laughed and knocked the idea on the head, or at least Quinn thought Rachel had. Later that day when Rachel had left Quinn to go home the idea embedded itself in the front of Rachel's mind until she could do no more than contemplate it twenty four seven.

The day Rachel announced of her departure was the day she actually departed. She'd expected Quinn to be more shocked but deep down Quinn knew that as soon as she'd mentioned the idea of distance, Rachel would jump on it like a frog to a lily pad. She asked no questions until they sat on the only available bench and by then she knew she was already months too late to change Rachel's mind.

As the train pulled away from the station Rachel didn't wave, she didn't even look Quinn's way, but Quinn looked hers. She looked at her shoes and looked back up again hoping that it was a trick of the light Rachel not returning her gaze, alas it was not. Instead something better had happened but Quinn didn't realise it until she got home playing the day's events over and over in her mind. The condensation on the window had been drawn on like when a child draws funny faces on cold window surfaces. At first Quinn thought it _had _been a child, but it couldn't have been. It was too precise. The scribble was numbers, but only looked that way to the person who had drawn them.

At that moment Quinn grabbed a piece of paper from her top desk draw and re-wrote the scribble trying to dictate what it was. Ten seconds, that's all it took. 365, 12, 1. It wasn't a child, it was Rachel. From the moment she had boarded the train she was already counting down the days until she could see Quinn again. Three hundred and sixty five days, twelve months, one year, the exact amount of time in which feelings that both Quinn and Rachel agreed would never be able to surface would have to be buried like ghosts in their pasts as they moved onto live a life they knew would be no more than a lie, until the day came that two hearts could be reunited as one.

* * *

**I know it's short but I hope you enjoyed it regardless (:  
Reviews, opinions, criticisms, all are welcome!  
**

**Enjoy the rest of your day!**


End file.
